TWO EXTRACTS FROM SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

 

                TWO EXTRACTS FROM SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS

            The two extracts given below are from the plays of English playwright, poet and actor William Shakespeare who was born on 23 April 1564 and died on 23 April 1616.

            He is most famous for “writing timeless plays and poetry.”

            Nearly five centuries have passed since his writings, yet he remains   unsurpassed by any other poet-playwright of the world .

            He wrote 39 plays all of which are as fresh today as they were at the time of their creation. They continue to win appreciation from readers and spectators.

            He also wrote 154 sonnets.

            His death is believed to have occurred due to the typhus fever.      

            The first extract which follows is from his play The Tempest, Act 4, Sc.1.

Be cheerful, sir:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air :

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.    

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            Te second extract is from The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Sc.1.It is the protestation of Shylock, a Jew, against Antonio, a Christian.

 

            If I will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what’s his reason?

            I am a Jew,

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is ?

 

            If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh ? If you poison us, do we not die?

            And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

            If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge.

            The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

 

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G.R.Kanwal

4 October 2026